


Hold Your Head Up

by Nemainofthewater



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Dubious Consent, Extra Treat, Gen, Greek Mythology levels of problematic gods, Insomnia, M/M, Oscar Wilde needs a break, Stalking, and a nap, non-consensual jewellery, spoilers through to episode 130, trick - Freeform, uncomfortable elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 09:57:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20928341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: What to do when one finds oneself loved by a god.





	Hold Your Head Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shoulder_Devil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulder_Devil/gifts).

> Written for the 2019 Trick or Treat exchange.
> 
> Very much inspired by this post on Tumblr: https://morning8glory.tumblr.com/post/187606228284/what-to-do-when-one-finds-oneself-loved-by-a-god

**Don’t try to run**.

“Ah,” Oscar says squinting into the darkness, “Are we doing this again?”

A chuckle. A hand placed gently on top of his head, and he shudders as warmth and love and understanding flow through him. His fists clench at his sides and he knows that when he wakes there will be bloody crescents on his palms.

He doesn’t turn. He knows better than to turn around: he can already feel the god’s heat behind him, he can already see the shadows cast before him, dark as his interloper is light. If he turns, then it’s all over. His years working for the Meritocracy have taught him that, if nothing else.

“Well,” he says after he’s endured another agonising minute of warmth, “I think that’s quite enough for this evening.”

“**_Oscar_**,” a voice murmurs behind him. It washes through him evoking the scent of fresh, green, grass and making him long for his home. It never becomes easier, never, but with a wrench he manages to pull away-

-and wake up. His office is quiet and cold, the candles having long since burnt themselves out.

He glances outside. It’s still dark, hours until dawn. Shaking his head and the last dregs of sleep of himself, he snaps his fingers and casts Dancing Lights, wincing as the movement jostles the fresh wounds on his palms.

Reaching over to grab the small jar of healing potion, he pauses. There are golden sparks dancing over his hands and as he watches they knit together the small red cuts until nothing remains but pale skin and a faint, floral scent that Oscar knows is hyacinth.

“No,” he says, lowly, a faint hysteria lacing through his voice, “No, you can’t have this.”

There’s no answer.

He draws in a shuddering breath. Takes a moment to compose himself, waiting until his thrumming pulse gentles enough that he can properly think.

There’s nothing he can do. Nothing except persevere, avoid sleep as much as possible, and hope that Apollo moves on quickly.

Calm once again, he casts a quick prestidigitation on himself and then pulls a stack of paperwork closer.

There’s so much work to do.

**They will have your scent**.

“And you’re certain that there’s nothing that you can do about it,” he says flatly.

“I’m afraid not,” the cleric in front of him says, her eyes sympathetic and abruptly Oscar hates her, hates her sympathy and her uselessness. Not that he shows it of course: his Glamoured form is as affable as ever and merely sighs.

“Maybe a talisman of some sort-” he says patiently.

“That won’t do any good,” the cleric says, cutting him off gently, “It’s not powerful enough. Now, if instead you were to devote yourself to another god-”

“No,” Oscar says, “I rather think that would exacerbate the problem. In any case, I have too much work to do without having to worry about pleasing yet another Patron.”

He rubs his eyes tiredly: he hasn’t managed more than a couple of hours sleep a night since the visits began and there’s only so much that stubbornness and caffeine can do to mitigate the effects.

“Thank you for your time,” he says, not entirely sincerely, getting up to go- 

“Wait.”

The cleric presses something into his hand. It’s a small, enamelled pendant of a peacock wrought in silvers and blues. Oscar can feel a faint aura of power emanating from it.

“I thought that you said it wouldn’t be any use,” he says.

“It probably won’t,” the cleric says, closing his fingers around the proffered gift, “But it’s better than nothing.”

**The strength of a god is incomprehensible**.

He takes the pendant to bed that evening, clutching it tightly in his fist.

When he wakes, an hour later, it’s to a sensation of bright, blinding fury and a handful of dust.

**Keep yourself under lock and key.**

Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam, however annoying his misplaced concern is, might actually be onto something.

That evening, wearing magic-suppressing cuffs and laid out on an uncomfortable prison cot, he sleeps deep and peacefully and wakes feeling more refreshed than he has since…well, since this whole situation began.

**They will ask for your heart. Tell them no.**

(It’s strange. Were you to ask a young Oscar Wilde whether he would desire a god’s companionship the answer would have been a vehement yes.

Present day Oscar Wilde knows better, however. He exists best behind carefully constructed facades and blatant innuendos: anything to keep the attention off his true goals. This? Whatever it is? Can lead to nothing but wreck and ruin. He does, after all, know his classics.

Fervently, he wishes that he knew what he did to draw Apollo’s attention because he would give anything to ward off the bright illumination of his regard and return to his comfortable obfuscating shadows.

Because every night, it’s getting harder to say no.

**Do not allow them to give you _their _heart.**

The day after his unsuccessful visit to the cult of Hera a paladin of Apollo turned up at the Meritocratic offices with a package for him. 

Wrapped in a golden cloth and scattered with dried hyacinth petals and a single branch of cypress, it wasn’t hard to tell who it came from. When he opened the parcel, hours later in the depth of night, as though as that would protect him from the sun’s gaze, he took out a shining golden pendant. The sun. Of course.

With a choked sob, he launched it across the room where it falls, clattering behind a sofa. It didn’t help. He could still see it, the darkness of his bedroom doing nothing but accentuating its glow.

He left it there.

When he woke up after a tortuous three hours, it was to find it placed around his throat.)

**Keep no idols. **

The shackles work for a few days. He manages almost a week of blissfully uninterrupted sleep before the dreams start again. The dark, and the bright light behind him, and the painfully soft touch.

Within a fortnight, shackles or no shackles, the dreams have returned, stronger than ever.

Desperate, worried (because they haven’t come back, it’s been weeks and LOLOMG haven’t returned from Rome and he’s beginning to think that they never will), out of his mind with sleep deprivation and thwarted hope and paranoia he thinks about returning to Cairo. Calimagi or no calimagi, surely there’s no question of Apophis being compromised. And he might be the only person who can help.

The next morning, when he awakens it’s to find the pendant fused around his neck and, dissipating even as he stares at it in the mirror, a bright golden handprint curled around his cheek and chin like a promise.

**Be Cruel.**

The world goes to hell.

The world goes to hell and he doesn’t know what to do, only that he has to do something. Anything.

His support network is gone, compromised (or dead a voice inside him whispers) or infected. The only person he can trust is himself, and that’s not a viable long-term strategy. He knows that know. 

(Sometimes when it’s late at night and he’s collapsed into whatever shelter he can find, when he’s shaking from the strain of a week’s worth of sleeplessness and stress, when he reaches up to absently wipe at his nose and his hand comes back stained red, he’ll look up to see Grizzop. Wreathed in a silver light, semi-translucent with his bow slung behind him and scowling at him, mouthing furious admonitions. He never stays.)

But it’s the only choice that he has.

**Keep the lights on**.

He gets to Japan. Somehow.

He spends most of his time below decks, papers spread out before him and dancing lights scattered to all four corners of his cabin, hoping that the radiance will drown out the soft glow of the pendant, which despite appearances to the contrary must be made of adamantine because he can’t fucking get it off. No matter what he tries.

It doesn’t work. The pendant just shines brighter. He grits his teeth and tries harder.

(Sometimes, just sometimes, he leans into the soft caresses in his dreams. It’s the only touch he can remember in a long time.)

**Keep the lights off.**

Zolf joins him in Japan, sent along by Curie and something inside him, a soft and frightened part of himself that he masks with quips and iron walls, shudders in relief.

Still.

He doesn’t let his guard down.

But he does spend the seven days of quarantine down in the cells with Zolf, deep below the surface and far from the sun’s gaze. And watching him read those terrible Harrison Campbell books with the calm equanimity of one who’s already spent a significant time in a jail cell and is regarding this interlude as a good opportunity to catch up on his reading… Well. He feels safe for the first time in a long while.

**They will tell you not to blind yourself. Do not listen. **

“What’s that?” Zolf asks and Oscar freezes.

Unconsciously, his hand moves to touch the pendant at his throat. He’s rather forgotten about it, these past few weeks, or at least it’s become a secondary worry. What is, after all, a smidge of insomnia compared to a zombie apocalypse?

(He doesn’t think about the touches. The way he has to squeeze his eyes shut lest they be blinded as a burning finger traces its way down his face, the ringing in his ears when he wakes that comes from a god’s true voice. The fact that when he looks in a mirror, looks in and sees the golden glow spilling out from beneath his pale skin, he can’t bear to look at himself anymore.)

“Nothing,” he says flippantly, casually lowering his hand. He smiles, wide and charming and arrogant, an ill-fitting mask after all that’s happened but one that he nonetheless has to resort to. “It’s nothing.”

“Really? Because last I checked you weren’t a paladin of Apollo.”

“A gift,” Oscar says, heart pounding in his ears, “From an old lover, you know. Terribly gauche to discuss it.”

Zolf frowns at him and opens his mouth to say something but Oscar cuts him off, suddenly, irrationally furious because he hasn’t said anything about the conspicuous lack of his driftwood dolphin pendant, and he would thank Zolf to offer him the same courtesy. He doesn’t say anything though. Just stands up and leaves. And Zolf lets him.

**Do not allow yourself to be taken to a secondary location. **

The dream is different.

The dream is different and Oscar freezes.

He’s standing in a great hall, marble columns stretching out as far as his eye can see. He can hear soft music, the sound of the lyre he thinks, pervading the room, and there’s someone singing. At least he thinks they’re singing, it’s hard to tell through the ringing in his ears.

He stands there for what feels like hours and just listens. It’s surprisingly peaceful, the song reaching down into his battered mind and leaving soothing trails in its wake.

Finally, the song ends and nothing is left but the silence.

“**_You’re nearly ready,_**” the voice says behind him, the voice of the singer, the voice that Oscar knows is Apollo, “**_Soon my love. Soon._**”

When he wakes it’s to a golden trail of tears streaking down his face and a glow under his skin that no Glamour can conceal. 

**Do not allow yourself to be loved by more than one god.**

He looks up and he’s there. Grizzop, scowling up at him. His feet make no indentation on the soft rushes that form Oscar’s office floor and the silvery glow that he gives off is new. But it’s undoubtedly him. No one else can give off that air of irritated concern.

“Here to kick me in the balls again?” he asks.

“I would if I thought it’d make you listen to me,” Grizzop says, narrowing his eyes at him. “What have you got yourself into now, Oscar? I swear, you need a babysitter.”

“I had one,” Oscar says lightly, “But unfortunately he went and got himself killed. At least I assume so, judging by your presence here.”

“Now, don’t go blaming me for your poor life decisions, Wilde,” Grizzop says, “I’m pretty sure that even a toddler knows not to go around throwing themselves at a god.”

Oscar sniffs imperiously and abruptly realises that he’s having the most fun he’s had in months.

“There wasn’t any throwing,” he says, “Quite the contrary. I can only assume that Apollo-”

But the end of his sentence is lost as, at the sound of the god’s name, the pendant flares bright and painful causing both of them to flinch back. Oscar is surprised that it hasn’t burnt him: Grizzop is not so lucky. When Oscar looks up at him, there are silvery trails of blood dripping out from his eyes and ears, though the wounds themselves seem to be speedily healing themselves.

“Jealous bugger, isn’t he?” Grizzop says.

Oscar laughs. It isn’t a pleasant sound.

“Yes,” he says, “Quite.”

Grizzop hesitates, and then reaches forward and brings Oscar into a hug. It’s like being embraced like a moonbeam, ephemeral and strange, but he clings back nonetheless.

“I can’t stay,” Grizzop says, “Even Artemis doesn’t have that power, but I came to tell you-”

He slips something into Oscar’s hand. Another pendant, because those haven’t caused him any trouble at all, this one made out of silvery metal and in the shape of the moon.

“-that if you need me, I’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” Oscar says, “That means a lot to me.”

Grizzop nods at him, once. And then he starts to fade.

“Wait!” Oscar calls out before he disappears completely, “The others-?”

But it’s too late. He gets no answer.

**They are prepared to belong to you.**

“Why me?”

The press of lips on lips, fleeting. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.

“**_Why not?_**”

**They have already stolen my voice. **

He can’t cast anymore. Not anything large. The last time he tried…The music and magic in his voice rang out and obliterated a whole, thankfully deserted, village. He had to flee before Shoin’s men could investigate. His footsteps left blooming hyacinths in their wake.

It’s hard enough talking: his voice rings with divinity, however faint. Carter especially is affected by it: he can’t stand to be in Oscar’s presence for more than a few minutes before leaving, claiming a headache.

Barnes can withstand it longer, but he looks troubled.

Zolf- he hasn’t spoken to Zolf in weeks. He can’t bear to. Instead he writes, steadily and without pause, filling journal after journal with information for him. Something for the dwarf to remember him by.

Eventually he stops talking altogether.

**Do not make them laugh**_._

“Please,” he whispers in his dreams, “Please.”

“**_Shhh,_**” Apollo comforts, gently rocking him back and forth as he cries, “**_It will all be over soon. Stand fast my love._**”

**You MUST run.**

He slips.

He breaks.

And he runs.

Throwing himself out of Apollo’s arms he runs as fast as he’s able, until his sides are heaving in exertion and his legs have turned to jelly and there is sweat coating him in a fine sheen. Apollo follows him, he can feel it: a warm wind behind him, an arrow slipped from a long-nocked bow and ready to strike. Behind him, hunting, always hunting.

He trips with a cry and falls, his ankle twisting painfully underneath him.

Warm arms wrap themselves around him and turn him over and then against his will his eyes are opening and he can see-

**Do not love them. Please do not let yourself love them. Run! Run,_ go now for the love of go-_**

**Author's Note:**

> Oscar Wilde is having an even worse time than in canon, and I think that's pretty impressive of me 😅 I hope you like it Shoulder_Devil!  
I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


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